Even though there will be a break of several weeks in the FIL World Cup (to be continued at the end of February in Canada), for the athletes there will not be any chance to take a rest. The coming weekend the European Championships will be held in Umhausen in Austria. Women and men will race in three runs to find the best among them, whereas like in the World Cup doubleseaters will only have two runs. Realistically there will be only four nations as serious gold-medal contenders. In the women´s event only the Italian sisters Renate and Christa Gietl can challenge the Russian reigning World and European Champion Ekatharina Lavrentjeva. The young Austrian Melanie Batkowski has proved that she has strong nerves in major events, but to claim the top of the podium she will need three flawless runs. The doubleseaters event will be as open as ever. The teams from Poland, Russia and Austria are all capable of winning. Two years ago gold (Pawel Porschnev/Ivan Lazarev) and silver (Denis Alimov /Roman Molvistov) went to Russia, but with the rookies Christian Schatz/Gerhard Mühlbacher, Austria, too, has got two strong sleds. Reinhard Beer/Herbert Kögl are leading in the overall World Cup and always good for a win.

Anything else than another head-to-head race between Austria and Italy would be a real surprise in the men´s event. After a weak season Austria has made its way back to the peak. It will be seen whether Gerhard Pilz, reigning European Champion will be strong enough to defend his title once again and continue his winning streak which started in 2002. After his accident in Lungeriue in which he suffered three fractured ribs, he has become faster and faster in the last two World Cups. With a hattrick in the European Championships he could add a third ECH title to his five World Champion titles. But Italy´s Anton Blasbichler, Patrick Pigneter and their fellows will try everything to avoid this.

On Thursday, January 26th, the first training runs will be held already. The Championships will be opened on Saturday at 9am with the first runs in the doubleseaters and women´s events.